Sunday March 6, 2016

Remember last post?  I ran across this and it hit home...funny that she and I would be feeling this at the same time.

Artistic Shades of Mediocrity

Alena  Freysinger  Henry·

"Sometimes we can’t see past the end of our noses or even into next week. I’ve been quietly struggling lately (like for the past 40 years). I really want to feel that I am an artist - except for all of the “buts”. I really want to be an artist - but I get too bored if it is easy and discouraged if it is too difficult. What’s the use?

- but I have time and money responsibilities toward my family.

- but I’m afraid someone will criticize my work or worse - that someone I love will reject something I’ve made for them (it has happened before and has derailed me for years). Why bother putting myself out there?

- but there are so many out there who are so much better than I am. What could I possibly create or contribute ?

- but I can’t grasp the value of it - I should be helping others, not painting pictures.  I ran across a blog post that told the story about a mediocre Russian artist, Viktor Hartmann, and the “butterfly effect” ....the concept that movement of stagnate air by the soft fluttering of butterfly wings is all it takes to set off a rippling chain of events that can create a hurricane, excerpts from the blog of Karen Ullo “ During the summer of 1873, the artist/ architect Viktor Hartmann died suddenly from an aneurysm at the age of thirty-nine. Hartmann’s forgettable talents led to a series of mediocre works that momentarily captured the attention of a few major figures in the artistic community of St. Petersburg.  In all fairness, Hartmann’s work should have died with him. – The only reason Hartmann’s work did not die is that Modest Mussorgsky, a man of much more memorable talents, happened to attend a posthumous exhibition of his friend Hartmann’s work, which inspired him write a piece for solo piano. Several decades later, that piece caught the eye of the brilliant Maurice Ravel. Ravel was not the first to orchestrate Mussorgsky’s work–over a dozen composers have tried their hands at that task–but Ravel elevated Pictures at an Exhibition into the canon of established symphonic music.

It took three men in two countries more than forty-eight years to create the half-hour of music. Creating music that would inspire generations was not the intention of the original artist. Somewhere in St. Petersburg, Russia, in 1873, a butterfly flapped its wings.

For me, however, the lesson is simply this: Viktor Hartmann did his best. His best could never put him in a class with contemporaries like Monet and Gaugin, and I guarantee that when he sat down to paint “The Hut on Hen’s Legs,” he had no notion that a Frenchman not yet born would someday use it as the backdrop of an orchestral work that would endure for centuries. Hartmann sat down to paint it, nonetheless.

It so happens that I count myself among the world’s mediocre artists. Someday, my voice and my arms will die with me, and this creative stuff I have been slaving at for decades will become nothing more than fodder for my obituary. The odds that I will inspire some greater artist to create something lasting are pretty slim, but I have, at least, been known to inspire smiles. I have taught a few people to improve their craft, and, most importantly, enriched a few prayers. It is enough.

Viktor Hartmann’s legacy demonstrates that if we use our talents (however forgettable) to ignite just a tiny spark of beauty, there is no limit to the wildfire the winds of the Spirit can flame. No artist should ever strive to be mediocre, but neither should the fear of mediocrity deter us from plying our trades. So get out there. Create. Get better every day. Make someone smile, and then let the butterflies do their thing. “ This story that helped me understand that the ACTION of making art is valuable in itself. The results of being an artist are not necessarily the folders of undisplayed “ not good enough” paintings I have upstairs in the spare-room closet, but more - a tiny ripple of observation, appreciation for beauty and creative energy sent out into the world. Hmmm...."

Alena had run across a blog post of Karen Ullo, and copied what Karen wrote to her blog, who inspired me to copy it again here... kind of a ripple there, isn't it?

Alena has helped me look at what I do with a little more surety.  Something drives me to release what I see, for a reason.   May any ripples begin!

Stay tuned.